The Garden State Parkway Murders


Christian Barth - 2020
    All of that was accomplished. It was remarkable.” - John Divel, Ocean City Police Department The Garden State Parkway Murders: A Cold Case Mystery is the first and only historical account of the unsolved murders of college friends Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry, who were stabbed to death in the woods alongside the Garden State Parkway near Ocean City, New Jersey on Memorial Day 1969. The discovery of the wealthy coeds three days after their slayings, as reported by Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News, touches off one of the largest manhunts in New Jersey since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Over the next ten years the New Jersey State Police, Atlantic County (N.J.) Prosecutor’s Office, and FBI question thousands of people, tracking leads as far as San Francisco in search of the killer. Among the suspects are infamous serial killers Ted Bundy and Gerald Eugene Stano, who were living within an hour’s drive from the murders at the time they occurred, resided next to one another for a time on Florida’s Death Row, and indirectly confessed to the murders before being executed. The Garden State Parkway Murders tracks the author’s decade-long obsession with seeking justice for Davis and Perry. Presented with all the information surrounding these brutal murders, including a discussion of recent technological advancements in DNA and FBI serial killer profiling, the reader is asked to consider, why hasn’t this cold case been solved?

Ten Days in a Mad-House


Nellie Bly - 1887
    In 1887, 23-year-old reporter Nellie Bly had herself committed to a New York City asylum for 10 days to expose the horrific conditions for 19th-century century mental patients.

Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers


Brian King - 1996
    He shows with comments and sequence the human delusions and viewpoints that preoccupied the minds of the individuals before, during and after the illegal, cruel, and terrible violent crimes. -- Herbert Mullin, a serial killer who murdered thirteen people in the Santa Cruz area of California between October 1972 and February 1973.A compilation of essays, short stories, memoirs, confessions, letters, manifestoes, poetry, drawings, photographs and other works created by serial killers, mass murderers, cannibals, necrophiles, sexual sadists, psychopaths and assassins."In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings. I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and last but not least I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all of these things I am not the least bit sorry. I have no conscience so that does not worry me. I don't believe in Man, God nor devil. I hate the whole damned human race including myself". -- Carl Panzram, murderer"I wish I could enact a law that would make a dull mind an infamous crime. I'm that embittered. They've done that much to me. Every time they waddle by with a filthy story created by a filthier mind, I wonder. There they go. Free. My potential executioners. Obese in mindand body. The men who perpetrate the world with social, cultural and historical lunacy. They get to kill me. Then I laugh. I know. The whole world has suddenly gone mad. Nothing matters". -- Charles Schmid, Jr., murderer

Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class


Barbara Ehrenreich - 1989
    A brilliant and insightful work that examines the insecurities of the middle class in an attempt to explain its turn to the right during the past two decades, "Fear of Falling" traces the myths about the middle class to their roots in the ambitions and anxieties that torment the group and that have led to its retreat from a responsible leadership role.

The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink


Mark Dery - 1999
    Celebrity worship and media frenzy, suicidal cultists and heavily armed secessionists: modern life seems to have become a "pyrotechnic insanitarium," Mark Dery says, borrowing a turn-of-the-century name for Coney Island. Dery elucidates the meaning to our madness, deconstructing American culture from mainstream forces like Disney and Nike to fringe phenomena like the Unabomber and alien invaders. Our millennial angst, he argues, is a product of a pervasive cultural anxiety-a combination of the social and economic upheaval wrought by global capitalism and the paranoia fanned by media sensationalism. The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium is a theme-park ride through the extremes of American culture of which The Atlantic Monthly has written, "Mark Dery confirms once again what writers and thinkers as disparate as Nathanael West, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Sigmund Freud, and Oliver Sacks have already shown us: the best place to explore the human condition is at its outer margins, its pathological extremes."

Elementary: The Explosive File On Scott Watson And The Disappearance Of Ben & Olivia: What Haven't They Told You?


Ian Wishart - 2016
    The book that finally cracks the case. Ben Smart. Olivia Hope. Scott Watson. Unmissable. Undeniable. Unprecedented. Unexpected. Note from author: "This book contains quotes from original police witness statements. No two witnesses ever see the crime from exactly the same angle, so differences between statements are expected. Sometimes one statement can have a crucial detail that others have missed. That's why I included what appear to be 'repetitive' statements by a number of witnesses. So you can see the overall similarities and weight of evidence, but also any unique details. Sometimes witness statements are relevant to different parts of the story, so just as in a murder trial, readers may find a statement being referred to more than once.In a crime story, the devil can be in the detail. The statements are quoted in the authentic spelling of the witness - as important legal records they don't get 'proofed'. The court trial lasted 12 weeks and involved 30,000 pages of documents. I have distilled that down to 372 pages but it is still a complex story. Think of yourself as a juror, sifting the evidence."Previous books on this case have concentrated on picking apart the police version of events given in Court. That's a legalistic technique of creating 'doubt'. I ask a different question: Forget about the court case, do the original witness statements including ones never used in court show us what happened? The answer, I suggest, is "Yes", and you are about to find out for yourself..."

The Butterfly Effect


Jon Ronson - 2017
    Lives were mangled. Fortunes were made. All for your pleasure. Follow writer and narrator Jon Ronson as he uncovers our web of desire.

Cold Water Crossing: An Account Of The Murders At The Isles Of Shoals


David Faxon - 2009
    They were the only inhabitants of the small island.That night, the men of the family were unexpectedly detained in Portsmouth awaiting a shipment of bait. At the dock, their casual conversation was overheard, a killer saw an opportunity, and did the unthinkable. He rowed ten miles out to sea on a freezing night and committed murders that have become legend in New England crime annals. One woman survived the brutal assault and narrowly escaped his clutches as she hid among rocks. This is the frightening story of what happened the night of March 5, 1873 on a lonely coastal island and what followed in the days and months after.

Triumph of Justice: Closing the Book on the O.J. Simpson Saga


Daniel Petrocelli - 2016
    Simpson free, Daniel Petrocelli came to pick up the pieces. Outraged by the disastrous miscarriage of justice, the family of murder victim Ronald Goldman sought justice in civil court—their last chance to go after Simpson. To represent them, they hired Petrocelli, a respected attorney who had never before tried a criminal case. In order to win the case, Petrocelli would have to prove that O.J. Simpson was a killer.The physical evidence connecting Simpson to the murders was rock solid, but in the criminal trial, evidence was not enough. To bring the families justice, Petrocelli would have to do something that the District Attorney had not been able to do: confront O.J. Simpson face-to-face.Called “the best book on the subject” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Triumph of Justice is the definitive account of the Simpson murders and their aftermath. In the long, twisted history of the trial of the century, Daniel Petrocelli has the final word.

Britain's Most Notorious Prisoners: Victorian to Present-Day Cases


Stephen Wade - 2011
    It is a place where time stops and lives are held in suspension, taken out of circulation. Amongst the jail population are the dangerous inmates: killers and rapists, gang 'hit-men' and serial offenders. They are the most notorious, their reputations sometimes enhanced by glamour, horrendous tales of their misdeeds and by their very incarceration.

Final Exams: True Crime Cases from Cyril Wecht


Cyril H. Wecht - 2013
    Wecht, M.D., J.D., one of America’s most respected forensic pathologists. Coauthored by crime writer Dawna Kaufmann, Final Exams explores both the technical and the human side of murder. From the heartbreaking case of abducted child, Jessica Lunsford, held captive within shouting distance of her loved ones, to the peculiar story of a murder for hire with a most unlikely victim, Final Exams takes the reader behind the scenes. Secrets about the private lives of both predators and victims are revealed as the authors detail the events that turned rage to tragedy. Fans of CSI will appreciate how Wecht and Kaufmann share the real life process of solving crimes with clues left with the victim.

Good Porn: A Woman's Guide


Erika Lust - 2008
    Do you think of it as a dirty word, a taboo topic, something you associate with cheesy films with bad plots? Filmmaker and author Erika Lust is here to change all that.With the goal of making porn more accessible to women, Good Porn examines the films, the industry, and the phenomenon. It breaks away from any assumptions you may have about porn, opening the door for a wholly new conversation about a medium that has too long been considered the domain of men. Come on in, ladies . . . the water’s just fine.

Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy


Saskia Sassen - 2014
    They are more accurately understood as a type of expulsion--from professional livelihood, from living space, even from the very biosphere that makes life possible.This hard-headed critique updates our understanding of economics for the twenty-first century, exposing a system with devastating consequences even for those who think they are not vulnerable. From finance to mining, the complex types of knowledge and technology we have come to admire are used too often in ways that produce elementary brutalities. These have evolved into predatory formations--assemblages of knowledge, interests, and outcomes that go beyond a firm's or an individual's or a government's project.Sassen draws surprising connections to illuminate the systemic logic of these expulsions. The sophisticated knowledge that created today's financial instruments is paralleled by the engineering expertise that enables exploitation of the environment, and by the legal expertise that allows the world's have-nations to acquire vast stretches of territory from the have-nots. Expulsions lays bare the extent to which the sheer complexity of the global economy makes it hard to trace lines of responsibility for the displacements, evictions, and eradications it produces--and equally hard for those who benefit from the system to feel responsible for its depredations.

100 Years of Leeds United: 1919-2019


Daniel Chapman - 2018
    Since its foundation in 1919, Leeds United Football Club has seen more ups and downs than most, rising to global fame through an inimitable and uncompromising style in the 70s, clinching the last Division One title of the pre-Sky Sports era in 1992, before becoming the epitome of financial mismanagement at the start of the 21st century. Despite this demise, United remains one of the best supported – and most divisive – clubs in football, with supporters’ clubs dotted across the globe. In 100 Years of Leeds United, Chapman delves deep into the archives to discover the lesser-known episodes, providing fresh context to the folkloric tales that have shaped the club we know today, painting the definitive picture of the West Yorkshire giants.

Backwoods Genius


Julia Scully - 2012
    After his death, the contents of his studio, including thousands of glass negatives, were sold off for five dollars. For years the fragile negatives sat forgotten and deteriorating in cardboard boxes in an open carport. How did it happen, then, that the most implausible of events took place? That Disfarmer’s haunting portraits were retrieved from oblivion, that today they sell for upwards of $12,000 each at posh New York art galleries; his photographs proclaimed works of art by prestigious critics and journals and exhibited around the world? The story of Disfarmer’s rise to fame is a colorful, improbable, and ultimately fascinating one that involves an unlikely assortment of individuals. Would any of this have happened if a young New York photographer hadn't been so in love with a pretty model that he was willing to give up his career for her; if a preacher’s son from Arkansas hadn't spent 30 years in the Army Corps of Engineers mapping the U.S. from an airplane; if a magazine editor hadn't felt a strange and powerful connection to the work? The cast of characters includes these, plus a restless and wealthy young Chicago aristocrat and even a grandson of FDR. It’s a compelling story which reveals how these diverse people were part of a chain of events whose far-reaching consequences none of them could have foreseen, least of all the strange and reclusive genius of Heber Springs. Until now, the whole story has not been told.